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Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

bbc.com

41–50 of 74 posts

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#41

> "The US was given the go-ahead to impose tariffs on $7.5bn (£6.1bn) of goods it imports from the EU following a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling on Wednesday." After reading this, I had the stupid question: Couldn't producers of tariffed goods in an EU country send their goods to a shipping hub of a nearby non-EU country to change the country of origin to avoid the tariffs? Example: Could or could not Scottish…

It's the production location. Maybe you could ship it in barrels and bottle it in Mexico or something though.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#42
post #33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but I'd assume it's to make good on other trade negotiations the public isn't privy to. In regards to the like of the extra $9b free up for US exporters to Japan, mostly ag. Complete and utter hidden... on the front page of the ustr.gov site. Takes a real investigative journalist expert to find. I mean, who would ever look on the same site on China trade deals to find negotiations opening up with other…

> But then again, BBC and CNN, and social media agreed, thought China would dump $1+ trillion in US bonds for pennies on the dollar and lose out on the loan leveraging they get to "punish the US"...by bankrupting themselves? Which never happened anyways. There's plenty of hyperbole out there, but hyperbole doesn't negate reality. China is buying fewer treasury bonds, and this is one reason why the bottom fell out of…

I dont know, maybe the baby bird needs to be pushed out of the nest too. It's a good way to quit relying on one large source for the bond market. That's inherently unsustainable. Every service provider knows your biggest customer is your riskiest one. If they leave, it hurts. Thus, speed that up in a controllable manner. A few broken eggs sure, but you still keep the hens and the hen house.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#43

Maybe a silly question but it seems these big high ticket businesses like Boeing and Airbus cannot provide affordable aircraft and survive without some government intervention and the bar to entry is too high for new players so why not come to some international agreement on how they are supported by government instead? It's seems better to have 2 manufacturers supported by government than to have only 1 that essenti…

Especially considering that the best candidate to become a third relevant subject would be Comac, the Chinese state-subsidized manufacturer...

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#44

The EU subsidized Airbus, which hurt the American company, Boeing. Therefore, all Americans have to pay 25% more for european wines, cheeses, and whiskey. How does this make any sense?

It's a pretty simple theory -- if Americans have to pay 25% more for certain European goods, then they will be incentivized to purchase those goods elsewhere, therefore hurting Europe. Of course, this assumes the goods are fungible; this could backfire if no suitable substitute exists for those goods.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#45
post #42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then again, BBC and CNN, and social media agreed, thought China would dump $1+ trillion in US bonds for pennies on the dollar and lose out on the loan leveraging they get to "punish the US"...by bankrupting themselves? Which never happened anyways. There's plenty of hyperbole out there, but hyperbole doesn't negate reality. China is buying fewer treasury bonds, and this is one reason why the bottom fell out of…

I dont know, maybe the baby bird needs to be pushed out of the nest too. It's a good way to quit relying on one large source for the bond market. That's inherently unsustainable. Every service provider knows your biggest customer is your riskiest one. If they leave, it hurts. Thus, speed that up in a controllable manner. A few broken eggs sure, but you still keep the hens and the hen house.

"Starve the beast" has been the Republican strategy for decades to kill entitlements. The thinking was that by refusing to raise enough revenue to cover spending, Congress would be politically forced to reduce spending. Of course, what happened and continues to happen is that revenues drop, spending stays the same or grows, and the gap is covered using increasing amounts of debt.

If you're suggesting that the pain of losing Chinese money will force the U.S. to reduce its deficits, that has manifestly not been the case for decades. For treasuries, instead what will happen is exactly what we've seen happen the past few weeks--something or someone will fill the gap before the whole house of cards collapses, which will sustain the status quo but ultimately put us on a more perilous path.

You can't bluff and cajole your way to smarter fiscal and industrial policy. Republicans have tried that and failed because it turns out you can't avoid making hard, considered decisions; nor avoid compromise. There's no avoiding the fundamental dynamics at play, which are complex and merciless. Entitlements exist for a reason. Trade with China exists for a reason. You can't address those things without addressing the underlying reasons they exist. Doubling and tripling down on a failed strategy with the world's worst bluffer isn't going to work any better.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drops demand for same items, hurting the producers and the countries they're based in, while maybe also diverting consumer money to domestic alternatives (or at least other countries that aren't quite so tariff'd). Right? Not siding with the tariffs, but that's the idea, no?

That’s actually what happens when tariffs are imposed yes.

The only thing we can be certain of, when tariffs are imposed, is that the price of those goods / services go up.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parmesan cheese from Parma is. That was one of the shocking things to me about European stores: there was only Parmesan (or yes, Parmesan-style) cheese from Italy due to food provenance laws, and yes, it was some of the most expensive cheese in the store.

You can actually get many kinds of cheese which is similar to parmigiano in Europe. Grana Padano is a much less expensive protected hard cheese, and many producers have similar non-protected cheese (Biraghi is a very large producer, for example). There's usually plenty of mixed pre-grated cheese bags too. The point is: it's not called parmigiano or parmesan, as that would be cheating the consumer.

> as that would be cheating the consumer.

That's the excuse, it's more about pleasing the local producers, as Denomination of origin laws generally are. As a consumer, I care much much more about taste and price for the same type of product.

That is, if it tastes the same or better, and is cheaper.... I don't care if it was produced 100 meters from my house outside of Europe, or in the basement of a 1300-year old church in a specific region of Italy. With today's technology, it's perfectly possible to emulate the ambient conditions from the original place in the super controlled food producing facilities.

But the local producers in said region might lose competitiveness or would have to stop pricing it as a "premium" product just because of where it was produced.

So, in my opinion, the concept of Denomination of Origin ends up being a legalized scam, as it end ups cheating more on the consumer, because in reality it doesn't necessarily mean the product is of better quality (as it's often advertised).

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#48
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know, maybe the baby bird needs to be pushed out of the nest too. It's a good way to quit relying on one large source for the bond market. That's inherently unsustainable. Every service provider knows your biggest customer is your riskiest one. If they leave, it hurts. Thus, speed that up in a controllable manner. A few broken eggs sure, but you still keep the hens and the hen house.

"Starve the beast" has been the Republican strategy for decades to kill entitlements. The thinking was that by refusing to raise enough revenue to cover spending, Congress would be politically forced to reduce spending. Of course, what happened and continues to happen is that revenues drop, spending stays the same or grows, and the gap is covered using increasing amounts of debt. If you're suggesting that the pain of…

First of, all politicians are greedy, lazy self interested assholes incapable of actually accomplishing anything of real substance of their own two hands. They just have different flavors of bullshit. So you pretending that just blame Republicans and the world is a better place, yea, ok. Its worked out so well for govs in history to blame another party and declare all politics should be based on ours. It's already a waste of an argument.

That and you put the cart before the horse. It's always been to cut spending first so rev wouldn't need to increase.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#49
post #35
post #31

On one hand, you have a sclerotic political establishment that at best hasn't figured out that the '90s free trade playbook doesn't work on China and at worst only cares about the WTO for its handy role in policy laundering. On the other hand, you have this ridiculous flailing, which actually makes the establishment look good. There really is no alternative. Makes me want to start drinking. But since tariffs are up o…

Is it wrong to set the table for the upcoming negotiations with UK and EU. If you list the tariffs against US in EU, it is not even a debate who is holding the short end of the stick.

Do you have any sources listing total tariffs on each side? I tried searching, but couldn’t find anything.

Re: Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

#50
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it wrong to set the table for the upcoming negotiations with UK and EU. If you list the tariffs against US in EU, it is not even a debate who is holding the short end of the stick.

Do you have any sources listing total tariffs on each side? I tried searching, but couldn’t find anything.

> The EU imposes a 10 percent tariff on passenger cars, compared with the 2.5 percent U.S. duty on European autos.

A study by the CESifo Institute in Germany found unweighted average EU tariffs of 5.2 percent, compared with the U.S. rate of 3.5 percent.

“The EU is by no means the paradise for free traders that it likes to think,” Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the think tank’s Center for International Economics, told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/22/europe-resist...

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